Care Homes: Covid-19 Testing

Baroness Altmann Excerpts

Thursday 14th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell]

No one working in the NHS should go to work if they feel ill or have a temperature. That is true for anyone working on the front line, but it is not necessarily true for people who work in normal workplaces.

[Baroness Altmann (Con)]

Is my noble friend aware of the guidance released to the NHS on 24 April announcing that all residents of care homes must be tested before admission? In paragraph 1.30, the guidance specifically states that:

“Where a test result is still awaited, the patient will be discharged and pending the result, isolated in the same way as a COVID-positive patient will be”.


Even now, this has resulted in care homes being required to take people out of hospital without knowing whether they have the virus and without necessarily having the appropriate PPE.

[Lord Bethell]

I am aware of that guidance. It is sensible guidance. It is necessary to free beds in our NHS hospitals to make them available to those who need them more. It is also necessary to isolate people when we are not sure whether they have Covid. These are 80uncomfortable truths and I do not deny that this will result in uncomfortable outcomes for some patients. One aspect of the disease is that it targets care homes and I make no apology for those arrangements.